Suzie

Biggest Mistakes Men Make With Online Dating: Guest Post

Mistakes-Men-Make-Online-DatingIf you talk to people who have been involved in dating online you’re likely to be inundated with tales of horror stories and negative experiences. How hard can online dating possibly be? Slap together a dating profile, upload a photo and wait for offers to roll in! If only…

The thing is, this is the attitude many people, especially men, adopt with online dating … and they wonder how it all went so wrong without realizing they’ve sabotaged their own chances of cracking the online dating scene.

As someone who has been involved with online dating from both perspectives, as a user and site administrator, I see many men making the same errors over and over. And to be honest, despite the influx or over-supply of men dating online, the well-written, funny and interesting dating profiles from men that do crop up from time to time really do stand out from the crowd – these are the guys who are dating all the girls – absolutely!

Guys, it’s time to start pulling on a few heart strings. The ladies are there willing and waiting but you’ll need to stop making it all about you and apply your efforts from a female perspective too.

Biggest Mistakes Men Make With Online Dating

Uploading Inaccurate Photographs

Lulling her into a false sense of expectation will not only back-fire, it’ll kill your confidence having to sit through an agonizing date after she takes one look at you and sees no resemblance between you and your profile snaps. Your profile pics must be recent and profiling the real you.

Don’t post half naked photos of yourself – so you go to the gym, she doesn’t really care that much at this stage of the game. What she does find attractive and alluring though, are photos of single guys who are happy, handsome and real.

Being Creepy

There’s a fine line with online dating between flattery and creepy. I often see complaints from female members who are being flooded with persistent flattering messages from the same person. I’m sure you have good intentions thinking you’re flattering her, but just think about it, she doesn’t know who you are so put yourself in her shoes and think about that for a moment? Subtlety and sincerity is what works best.

Boring Her

“Hi there” or “Would you like to chat sometime soon?” isn’t exactly going to stimulate her moan zone. It’ll just make you sound like the other zillions of guys hitting on her. Before you message her, read her profile! Ask relevant questions, let it be known that you’re interested in HER, not every single other girl on the dating site. Don’t overexpose yourself, keep it modest, sincere and a little mysterious.

Taking Too Long To Act

By not giving up, and using the advice I’ve offered so far you’re setting yourself up to attract more interest. Now that she’s convinced you’re charming and interesting, it’s time to take it offline and step out from the keyboard. She’s not looking for a pen pal, so ask her out for a non-formal date now that you’ve gotten to know each other a little better.

No one likes to feel like a number, so if you’d like to turn the tables on your online dating woes, be respectful, be yourself, keep it personalized and start having FUN!

Matt Fuller is the creator and administrator of Free Dating Australia which is a popular choice for singles looking online for love and dating opportunities in Australia. Follow Matt’s updates on Google Plus. 

Readers, what do you think? Ladies, what are some of the things that raise your red flags when online dating? I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Your Sister in Dating Bliss,

Single Dating Diva

Copyright Single Dating Diva

20 comments

  1. While it seems pretty straight forward in the tips as to what guys should do it is amazing really mess it up.

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  2. One of the biggest things about online dating or dating in general is when exes are mentioned. Some go so far as to mention their exes in their profiles (cheated on, etc). Huge Red Flag. Others seem ok the first couple messages then somehow the ex becomes part of the conversation. I find if I learn more about the ex than I do about the person I’m chatting with….I’m done.

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    • I love it when a lady has photos of herself, on her dating profile, that look like her breast are about to fall out of the dress she is wearing. Then you read her profile, and it’s all about her complaining about the guys that want to motorboat her breasts – cursing at them and warning all men to behave 🙂 Ha ha… Delete.. bye bye!

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  3. Hope this is followed up with an article about the “Biggest Mistakes Women Make With Online Dating” Number one would be for sure the “Uploading Inaccurate Photographs” So many women put photos that are many years old, or high school photos when they are in their 50s or 60s! . I cannot tell you how many times I have met ladies, and they did not even look like their photos – different color hair Of course boring in not something men all do… women seem to ramble on and on about their grand kids …….Last of all, I can agree on the “Taking Too Long To Act” ……BUT…I have many times exchanged one of two e-mails with women who just went POOF, without any word or explanation. Guess I lost out on that buy some sweet talking guy mentioned earlier. Of course I have noticed that women do fall very easily for the “sweetie” and “honey you are beautiful” talk.

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    • I think both women and men behave badly when online dating because frankly they can. To be honest, those guys who keep telling me I’m beautiful and sweet talk me don’t get anywhere. If I’m not intellectually stimulated and wow’d by them then I don’t bother.

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      • LOL… But Suzie, you are VERY “beautiful” … MWAH I want you to have my baby 🙂 Seriously….. I have got to the point where I find the free dating sites – OKcupid and Plenty Of Fish – totally useless. Do you think that maybe the pay dating sites are any better – and which one(s). I’m figuring the free dating sites may have too many women that are just not that motived. Of course I have found a number of women who are not interested at all, but are online because their kids or friends want them to “find a man to date”. Also about OKcupid…which I call OKstupid, for all the matches that are sent my way by them, of women that have not been on the site for months. So sweet, beautiful, and of course intellectually stimulating, thanks for letting me rant on. XOXO

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        • I’ve done a bunch of the pay sites over the years – I’ve found them to be no better than the free sites – just a different set of problems. With the free sites people not only get swamped with the “just looking” crowd that you mention, but also you get people who don’t behave very well because they have nothing invested in it (ie. the just-want-sex and will-try-anything-to-get-it crowd). With that logic you’d think the pay site would be a more serious crowd, but I find that to be anything but the case. Instead you just end up with a site full of people who have a completely unrealistic idea of their ‘perfect match’, and nothing else will do because that’s what they are paying for.

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          • Well put Todd. I have a cousin who is a few years younger than me – 61 yo – and she has found the same about the “just-want-sex and will-try-anything-to-get-it crowd” on both the free sites and on Match.com. Of course she also gets a lot of 20 something guys sniffing around her also. When I was 20 years old, I would have never thought about dating or “doing” a 60 year old women – YUK 🙂

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          • I received a few abusive messages on POF because guys did not like my profile (my apologies for knowing what I now want…) but my favorite site is RSVP though I think because if you do not use your stamps by the end of the month you lose them, I think this is when men will send an email with abusive comments. Being online opens up the door for saying the things you would not dare to say face to face and some people are totally abusing that privilege.

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  4. To be blunt, online dating reduces the entire process to a supermarket of people where you get the most superficial impression of each other, and then toss away the bulk of them. The worst part of it is that people have become so used to this idea that they now think this is a normal way to sort through people. I’ve had friends tell me “but that’s no different than meeting someone at a bar”. But it is, because looking at a photo for two seconds applies no personality. Even in the worst bar pick-up attempt in the history of humanity, there were a few lines back and forth before a drink got tossed in the face.

    I had one friend who always told me my profile description was too long. I tried to get her to understand that if the person reading it was too ADD to handle reading a few paragrahs about me that we’d never get along anyway. Her attitude perfectly reflects why I really don’t believe online dating is effective. Yet I’m still out there, because I don’t have any better ideas at the moment. lol

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  5. I have to agree with a lot of what SDD says about bad profiles, though I would say I don’t see any issues with a brief first message. The unfortunate reality of how most people work on these dating sites is that if someone you find hot messages you, you reply back, almost regardless of what he says. If you don’t find him attractive, you don’t reply. Brutal but true. And yes DJ Oddity, that does make it all a bit like a supermarket!

    In my experience, sites like match and eharmony have more ‘serious’ Daters- you’ll always get sex pests everywhere! But for the most part, if a guy has paid a subscription to a site, you know that he’s more interested in settling down with someone. However, I have also found that the paid sites still contain more of a stigma of desperation for men my age, and so some of the ‘cooler’ single guys I know would never consider paying, even if they want to be in a relationship. Which is why sometimes you find some really nice normal guys on POF and Tinder who aren’t just after sex- the free sites just hold less stigma for them.
    Miss Twenty-Nine xxx

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  6. One thing that’s sure to make turn me off a mans profile is when he seems to hate women. “Don’t even know why I’m on this site most women are shallow, awful shrews. Will anyone prove me wrong????”

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    • LOL….. Yes, I’m sure. Guess those guys are trying the reverse psychology method of dating 🙂 But flip that the other way toward what women post on their profiles………. usually a long list of what they are looking for in Mr Perfect.- and that is most often followed by the request….. “it sure would be nice if you have blue eyes”

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  7. I hate fake profiles, of people who don’t live in the country but pretend to. I don’t like profile of half naked men because it makes me think all you have going for you is your body and not your mind. I hate those who brag about income as if you are for sale.

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